


Gotta Give It Up

by mharris



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Christmas, Dealing With Trauma, Gen, Healing, M/M, absolutely no projection of the authors onto any character no that'd be weird, my good boys being good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mharris/pseuds/mharris
Summary: Andrew's feelings about Christmas and his relationship with his family through it.-Andrew assumed Nicky thought that they were one Lifetime Christmas movie away from being a normal family if only he could set the scene right. Andrew had watched Nicky try and try again for half a dozen years now to find the right formula to make them all love each other in a Hallmark Card sort of way. Nicky hadn’t yet realized Hallmark didn’t make cards for drug addicts and abuse survivors





	Gotta Give It Up

**Author's Note:**

> A piece I did for the all for the game holiday zine, which you can find [here](https://faintlyglow.itch.io/heathensgreetings-aftg-fanzine)

Andrew didn’t hate Christmas, he was just ambivalent about it, just like he was about everything else. That’s what Nicky thought, that’s what most people thought. Andrew was ambivalent about very few things, actually, Christmas not being one of them. It’s only that a long time ago, Andrew learned that other people knowing how you feel about things only leads to bad places. So everyone thinks he’s ambivalent about Christmas, and he doesn’t say anything otherwise.

Nicky was possibly opposite of Andrew, he loved Christmas with an almost desperate enthusiasm. Andrew assumed Nicky thought that they were one Lifetime Christmas movie away from being a normal family if only he could set the scene right. Andrew had watched Nicky try and try again for half a dozen years now to find the right formula to make them all love each other in a Hallmark Card sort of way. Nicky hadn’t yet realized Hallmark didn’t make cards for drug addicts and abuse survivors. But Christmas after Christmas Nicky tried, and he roped the boys into whatever he was planning for that year. Quiet days in, time spent volunteering, church gatherings, quaint homestyle decorations, offensively modern pink tree; every year a different take on a holiday that just didn’t take.

Andrew watched Aaron oscillate wildly from indulging Nicky to vociferously opposing him, depending on the time of day, his mood, how much he had eaten, the phase of the moon, maybe windchill. Something. Andrew couldn’t tell what Aaron’s motivations were at the best of times, Christmas was no different. But the fight would leave Aaron the closer they got to the holiday, and come Christmas, maybe Aaron didn’t revel in it like Nicky did, but he didn’t seem to hate it either. If anyone was ambivalent about Christmas, it was Aaron.

Christmases after Andrew started medication were worse. Nicky went from determined and perhaps desperate, to desperate and distressed. Medicated Andrew never shut up about whatever Nicky had planned this time. “That’s a great idea, Nicky.” and “Oh that’ll certainly work this time, Nicky.” and “You’ll get it eventually, Nicky. One good holiday and we’ll all be normal again.” Sober Andrew wished he could reach into the past and choke the life out of himself.

The first Christmas at Palemetto was a comedy of errors. The upperclassmen had finally decided they wanted nothing to do with their family, so no sweet team Christmas. Kevin had joined them only days prior, and he was panicking when sober and an asshole when drunk. Then Aaron started disappearing at random and gave them no explanation. Andrew eventually figured out it was because of Katelyn, but at the time he suspected drug use again and between that and Kevin’s newly formed bottle habit, Christmas was a war zone.

Last Christmas Nicky had nearly gotten it right. Nicky hadn’t said that exactly, but last Christmas was so good, and it was so festive. Andrew hadn’t pointed out that the difference between last Christmas and all the Christmases before was his absence. He hadn’t said it, but he thought it. Often. He thought about his absence as much as he didn’t think about where he had been. There had been decorations up at the center, and Andrew had spent much of his time cataloging how much Nicky would or wouldn’t like each and every one of them. It distracted him. Andrew hadn’t said anything about that, either.

This year though, Nicky was determined to get the Christmas of his dreams. Erik was supposed to visit. Katelyn was going to be there too, Kevin was off the bottle and better every day. All he needed was for Andrew to be a little more willing, and for that, he turned to Neil.

Which was his second mistake. His first, was assuming Neil liked Christmas.

Nicky was met with a frosty no from Neil when he approached Neil about getting Andrew to agree to some Christmas activity. But seven plus years of trying to shape Andrew and Aaron into normal people had turned what was an average will into a steel hardened will, and Nicky stopped taking no as an answer years ago.

Nicky began in earnest after Thanksgiving. Andrew was thankful for Thanksgiving, despite that he hated it. He had hated it before Drake, but that incident was just the mortar between the stones, cementing that hate in place. At least now, no one would ask him to celebrate it. Andrew hated Thanksgiving simply for what it was, no more, no less. But he was grateful for Thanksgiving’s place in holding Christmas back. Elsewise, people like Nicky would have Christmas decorations up on November first. And people called him the monster.

So it was after Thanksgiving but before December that Nicky tried again. Pinning Neil with a half casual glance, as if he hadn’t planned out exactly what he was going to say very carefully. He never got a chance to try it out because Neil cut him off before he could speak.

“No, Nicky, fuck off.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

Nicky was pouting, towel and clothes in hand, halfway between his locker and the showers. Neil was pointedly not looking at him as he tidied his own locker, but the irritation was coming off of him in waves.

“Whatever Christmas shit you’re going to ask me about, no. Stop asking.” Neil said. He turned his gaze on Nicky, whose only reaction was to frown a little deeper.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.” Nicky repeated.

“I’m pretty sure I said no, Nicky.”

At his locker, Andrew opened his bag and reached into the bottom of it. He pulled out the knife and flicked it open with one swift movement. The click of the blade locking in place silenced the locker room. Nicky turned his gaze to the knife, and the friendly pouting disappeared in favor of true disappointment. _This is unfair_. Nicky’s expression said, but his mouth said nothing, and he abandoned the conversation for the showers.

Andrew closed the knife and slid it back into his bag with the same, practiced fluidity, and closed his locker. Silently beside him Neil closed his as well, shouldering his own bag and turning to Andrew.

“You don’t need to threaten to stab people just to get them to stop talking, you know.” Neil said. There were droplets of water still caught in his hair from his shower. They slipped to the tips of his hair and threatened to fall on his face. “In fact, practical wisdom says you should probably stop doing that.”

Neil knew what Andrew knew, that the presence of a weapon was a bigger deterrent than using it ever was. Andrew hadn’t ever laid his hands on Nicky, not with real force, but Nicky was still afraid because of the knife, not because of any actual violence. Andrew didn’t say that because Neil knew that, and Neil was just talking so he could say something sarcastic, not because he wanted a response. Andrew lifted his hand and brushed his fingers over the ends of Neil’s hair to catch the droplets there, and Neil smiled.

Neil didn’t ask about it, and Andrew didn’t offer, but he knew first hand what Nicky’s persistence was like, and knew this wouldn’t be the last of it, knife or no knife.

Nicky talked loudly and often about Christmas between then and finals. What was worse, was the fact that he seemed to infect the upperclassmen as well. Matt was wearing a santa hat more often than not, and Dan seemed to have a seemingly endless supply of ugly sweaters. Renee didn’t bother to defend the bows with bells she put in her hair. Andrew said nothing and did nothing, but she scrunched her nose and shook her head so they jingled.

The last Friday of classes, plans were made to go ice skating somewhere in town. Andrew didn’t pay attention. The moment he realized what plans were being made, he tuned it all out. Everyone else had gone ice skating in New York last year and it had been so much fun, apparently. Andrew yanked open the dorm window and chain smoked through the freezing air that crept up Andrew’s arms like a soft touch. Aaron asked him to close it once, then just left for his own room again, Nicky frowning and following. That left Kevin packing up the last of his things for their move out of the dorms, and the heavy pressure that Andrew put in the air.

Kevin stood at the doorway of the bedroom, arms crossed and frowning, watching Andrew for a few moments.

“You play a cardio heavy sport, you should go easy on those things.” he said. “You shouldn’t smoke at all, but, I can’t stop you.”

When Andrew didn’t respond, Kevin tried a different tactic. “Are you going to finish packing? We’re supposed to be out by tomorrow at noon, in case you forgot.”

Andrew remembered, but packing before he needed to only highlighted how little he had, so he just didn’t. He knew Neil hadn’t packed yet either for the same reasons. Most of the things in the dorm belonged to people that didn’t even live in their dorm. Nicky’s DVDs, most of the dishes were from the house in Columbia, Renee’s hair brush was on the table for some reason Andrew had forgotten. Those were other people’s responsibilities and if they forgot them, that wasn’t Andrew’s problem. They weren’t Andrew’s problem.

Kevin sighed and dropped his arms, “Can you at least shut the fucking window? It’s freezing.”

Andrew took a deep drag, then flicked the cigarette out the window and released his breath with it. He snapped the window shut but didn’t move.

“Thanks.”

Neil came back twenty minutes later. Andrew could hear that he had be waylaid in the hall by Nicky and probably Matt since Dan would be with him. They both had a very long meeting with Wymack, last until the new semester next month, and their absence had created the vacuum of boredom that resulted in the outing. The dorm door opened and for just a moment he could hear Dan’s voice- excited, and Nicky’s- indignant. The door snapped shut, and the thud of Neil’s bag was especially loud in the silence.

“This place is colder than that warehouse I stayed in in Montreal,” Neil said.

He cast a sweeping look around the room and saw the bedroom door decidedly shut, and Andrew near the window. Without having to look over, Andrew knew the exact expression Neil would be wearing. The one he hated the most. The look Neil gave when he understood exactly what Andrew was doing and thinking, that look that tore right through him like he was transparent and Neil was reading what was written on his bones. Andrew hated it and hated Neil, and most of all hated that he could be so easily read. That anyone could dare to know him like that and worst of all be right. How dare Neil for even looking at him, how dare he himself for allowing anyone to look at him like that. It rose in his throat like a bubble that was going to burst.

Neil slid up against the desk, a single hand outstretched.

“Yes or no?” he asked.

His voice was simple, there was no pity, no softness, it was just a question. Andrew’s shoulders wanted to let go of the tension that was bunched up there, but Andrew held onto it like a life preserver.

“Yes,” he said.

Neil put his hands right on those shoulders, and dropped his head to rest against Andrew’s back. Andrew let out a breath. He took in a new one and forced it out again as well. Then another, and another, until his breathing didn’t hurt. He tipped his head back against Neil’s, and they stayed like that for a long while. They listened to the heat kick on, and Kevin moving in the bedroom, and voices in the hall, and they breathed quietly in an even quieter room.

The bedroom door cracked as it unstuck from its frame, and Andrew and Neil sat up straight as Kevin came into the room. He was dressed for the elements, a scarf Andrew had never seen draped lazily around his neck and gloves in his hands. He didn’t stop as he talked, walking toward the door, but there was no need.

“I take it the two of you weren’t convinced to come?” Kevin asked.

“Nope,” Neil said almost cheerily. “We have to pack, we’re supposed to be out of here by noon tomorrow, you know.”

Kevin looked back at him from the door, as if trying to figure out if there was some joke he wasn’t aware of. In the end, he lifted an eyebrow and said, “Better get to it,” and left.

—

In Columbia, Andrew was a little appalled to find Christmas decorations already up in the house. Only a few compared to Nicky’s wealth of a collection, but enough that it made both him and Neil pause and wonder when Nicky had found the time to come do any of this without them noticing. Neil ungracefully shoved aside a clear plastic box of possibly garland, probably several mini trees, to put the down the box of dishes and food he was carrying. Silently the two of them moved the boxes of Christmas tchotchkes out of the way, and began to unpack the lives they carried from the school to here. Dinner was quiet, and they spent the night alone under heavy blankets, the pressure a peace they could not find during the day.

Nicky, Aaron, and Kevin showed up sometime around one the following afternoon. Kevin looking like he had spent the past half hour of the drive suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. It gave him a particular twitchy, dead eyed look that always made Neil grin. The three of them dumped their bags and assorted crates and boxes and piles of books on the living room floor. Nicky immediately abandoned the unpacking and bounded toward the boxes of decor Neil and Andrew had tucked away the previous night.

“Not until you put this shit away, you don’t.” Kevin shouted after him.

Nicky whined from the kitchen and sulked back, arms crossed. “Sorry mom,” Nicky said.

Kevin leveled a stare at him, then picked up the two bags and one box he had brought with him and left to deposit them in his room.

“I’m older than you, you know!” Nicky shouted after him. “In case you forgot. Also this is my house!”

But Kevin was long gone, and Nicky was arguing with himself.

Aaron shouldered a bag, “He’s right.”

“You’re no fun.” Nicky pouted. “Put your stuff away and put up decorations with me.”

Aaron shrugged as he walked away, but Andrew knew he’d be back helping Nicky hang a stuffed reindeer head that was supposed to look homemade but still had the Target care tag on it. Nicky turned first to Andrew, then Neil.

“School is over, it’s December, it’s officially Christmas season, are you going to be a grinch or are you going to help me hang some decorations?” Nicky asked.

Neil snorted into the cup of coffee he was holding and turned back into the kitchen.

“Am I going to have to ask you to talk to him for once?”

Andrew raised an eyebrow, then turned to follow Neil.

“¿Ay dios, porqué intento?”

Neil and Andrew went on a long walk after that, most of it passed in silence. They stopped at a small neighborhood park where they loitered against the park fence doing their best impression of youths up to no good. Neil pulled the hood of Andrew’s sweater up and tugged at the strings as he chuckled, making up stories of younger Andrew. Neil imagined him a lot nicer than Andrew remembered being, but retrospect was a bitch. They walked until the cold air burned their lungs, until the day began to break down its warmth, until Kevin texted them asking if they would be home for dinner. Then they walked home together in the quiet.

Nicky tried to harangue them for not helping with any of the work involved in decorating, but Neil snapped back at Nicky while his hand rested on Andrew’s back. It was a tether, a warmth that kept them both grounded. Dinner was tense, and after was quiet with everyone barricaded in their own rooms.

In the dark in their bed, Neil growled out obscenities. Andrew let Neil bitch about it for a while. His rant a comforting white noise. But eventually, he turned to Neil and asked him for a kiss. It was the best and fastest way to get both Neil and his brain to shut up.

The next day, Nicky borrowed Andrew’s car to pick Erik up from the airport. He came home in a happier mood, and didn’t bother to approach Neil or Andrew about watching whatever Christmas movie Nicky put in. Andrew knew it was the calm before the storm. The closer the holiday got, the more holiday Nicky became.

Three days later Andrew was proved right. Nicky asked the two of them to join everyone in a holiday activity Nicky simply called ‘looking at the lights.’ Neil frowned, but didn’t bite back. Nicky took this as some sort of agreement, and for the rest of the day used the word ‘we’ when talking about plans. Neil asked Andrew quietly if he wanted to go, and Andrew sat there silent, contemplating the question.

This was around the time that Andrew usually started to give into Nicky’s requests. Nicky’s persistence was terminal, but Neil was a mountain that would not move. Andrew didn’t want to give in, but he didn’t want to keep fighting. He just wanted everyone to stop. He wanted everything to stop for a little while so he could breathe, but the cold air formed ice in his lungs and he knew he wouldn’t thaw until spring.

As if he could feel the cold, Neil put his hand over Andrew’s chest. It radiated warmth.

“Nothing you don’t want,” Neil whispered.

That evening, everyone else showed up at once. The door opened and a carful of people were dumped into their living room. Katelyn bounded through the house looking for Aaron. She found him in the kitchen by the sound of her squeal. The pressure of their presence was immediate and intense and it had Andrew wanting to crawl up the walls. He kept to his chair by the window because to leave would be to invite their attention and that idea was even worse.

Dan was talking to Kevin about beverages that would be sold, which led him to complain about how all holiday drinks were always sugary. Allison was rearranging a scarf around Renee’s neck. Erik was hovering behind Nicky who was talking with Matt about transportation.

“The cab can hold five, six if they’re small, but we got some blankets and pillows in the bed so everyone can chill back there,” Matt said.

“That sounds incredible, I’ll bring some of ours.” Nicky said. He turned to grin at Erik, “We can cuddle up under a blanket together, how about that?”

Erik was responding, but Andrew stopped paying attention. The flurry of activity seeped into his skin like a poison, a rash blooming bouquets of irritation where people couldn’t see. Andrew relaxed his jaw, his fist, his chest, but the tension just found another hiding spot. Neil’s voice cut through his thoughts, and he looked up. A stand off had started between Nicky, bundled up and ready to leave, and Neil, his stockinged feet like an open declaration of war.

“Come on,” Nicky sounded irritated, “I thought you guys were over this.” he said.

Neil’s eyebrow twitched, “Over this?” Neil said. “Like we’re children throwing a fit, yeah?”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” Nicky said.

“I think that’s exactly what you meant.”

Nicky started talking over Neil, “You agreed this morning! You were fine with it! And now you’re saying no, just to, to I don’t—“

“To ruin your plans and your Christmas?” Neil said. Nicky started to talk again, bit Neil cut him off, “We never agreed to anything. This doesn’t have to be a problem, Nicky, let it go and move on.”

“And you need to stop stopping yourself. It’s Christmas, it’s time to build good memories”

“Maybe not everyone likes Christmas,” Neil said.

“Well, you don’t need to hate on it, and stop other people from enjoying themselves.”

“I’m not stopping anyone from doing anything.”

Nicky turned to Andrew suddenly, hands on his hips, “Do you enjoy Christmas?”

In the eight years they had lived together, Nicky had never bothered to ask that, not once. No one ever had.

“No.” Andrew said.

Nicky deflated like a popped balloon. “But you’ve always, you never said—“

“You never asked.” Andrew said plainly.

Nicky stood there, defeated. The fight that had been building for weeks, the one Nicky had been waging for years, over in an instant.

“Well forgive me for trying to do something nice for once in our miserable lives.” Nicky snapped.

“Stop that.” Neil said. “Just because someone else doesn’t like something doesn’t mean they’re insulting you for liking it.”

Nicky frowned at Neil, as if suddenly he were speaking a different language. From the door, Renee’s soft voice spoke out.

“If you don’t let people step away when they need to you’re not making nice memories you’re making more bad ones.” she said. “What may be good for you may not be good for everyone else.”

Nicky turned to look at her for a long moment.

“More room in the truck bed, eh?” Erik said, putting his hand on Nicky’s shoulder.

Nicky sighed, and leaned into the touch. Then, without looking back at Neil, led the party out of the house.

Renee stayed a beat longer than everyone else. “He’ll get over it, he’s just being dramatic.” she said to Neil.

“I know,” Neil replied.

“Enjoy the quiet,” she said, and left with a wave to the both of them.

Andrew watched the closed door for a moment, then when he couldn’t bear it any more, looked up at Neil. Neil nodded, and then disappeared into the kitchen. Andrew sat and listened to Neil making noises in the kitchen for a while before grabbing a pack of cigarettes and a jacket and going outside.

Andrew sat on the curb and shook out a cigarette. He simply held it in his fingers while he let the chill melt away the warmth from the inside. This wasn’t the first time Nicky’s dramatics had driven him to chain smoke on their curb during Christmas. He wondered if this was what Christmas was always going to be like for him now. Tension, fights, chain smoking, repeat. He didn’t want holiday music playing around him, it grated on his psyche. He didn’t care about garland and ornaments, tinsel or wreaths, there was no meaning in them. But most of all he didn’t want to be forced to perform a pantomime of pretending anything about this was normal.

Pretending the stress didn’t exist. Acting like going into debt for presents was okay, pretending he wasn’t disappointed when he got none. People using money as a way to show off how much they had and cared and how you obviously didn’t if you had none. Having to be a grateful little kid to people who only performed kindness as showmanship. Being stressed by other people stressing out. Being expected to play along and being chastised and shunned when he refused.

Andrew lit his cigarette.

Behind him, he heard the door shut and Neil’s quiet steps. Neil sat down on the cold curb, and hugged his sweater tighter around him. It hadn’t snowed yet this year, but the feeling was in the air, in the ground, in the deep shiver that shot through Neil. Andrew held out his pack of cigarettes, but Neil waved them away. They sat like that, silent and near but not touching, until Andrew finished his cigarette. He dropped it to the curb and let out a breath that was more fog than smoke.

“I was thinking,” Neil said softly. “What if for Christmas, we just find a hotel and stay there a night or two? No dinners, no presents, no tree. Just us.”

It was Andrew’s turn to shiver. He liked to pretend he was numb to everything, but somethings still hit deep.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Maybe next year we don’t stay with Nicky during the winter break,” Neil said.

“Yeah.” Andrew said.

“You okay?” Neil asked.

Andrew said nothing, then, “Yeah.”

“Hey,” Neil said, and Andrew looked over at him. “You’re not alone.”

Of course he wasn’t alone, he was surrounded by idiots every day. But. Neil’s words had attached themselves to his heart, and pulled at it like they were a viscous, sticky substance. Weighed his heart down. His eyelashes fluttered and he looked away, lest that weight show in his face. But Neil reached out, not touching, just a hand in his vision, a flag to get his attention. As if to say,

“I see you.”

Neil’s words were soft, and if not for the fog of his breath in the cold night air, Andrew would not have been sure he had heard them. Andrew looked back at him, Neil’s gaze steady, his hand still outstretched. Andrew leaned his face into that hand, and softly closed his eyes. Neil’s thumb rubbed Andrew’s cheek for a moment and then went still, just holding him there. An anchor point. Because for all the people around him, Neil knew him, and being understood by someone is the deepest intimacy there was.

“Yes or no?” Neil whispered.

Andrew hesitated. “Yes.”

Neil eliminated the space between them, and left a soft kiss against Andrew’s lips. He kissed again, longer the second time, deeper the third. The hand that wasn’t on Andrew’s cheek rose up to Andrew’s arm, almost grasping but not quite. Andrew hummed against Neil’s lips, and the hand fell.

Andrew hated being touched. It felt like a fire under his skin, made his skin crawl at the thought of it. Most of the time he wished he could just remove his skin, peel it off leaving him exposed, so he could feel nothing at all. Only relief. But when Neil touched him, sometimes it was a fire and sometimes it was an electricity. The buzz of two living things connecting. It made him feel alive in a way that made him sick. He hated it. When Neil touched him it felt like he was going to throw up, not the nausea, but the gut wrenching, full body seize of not being able to control how he felt. He hated that Neil could do that, he hated how much he wanted it.

Andrew pulled Neil closer to him, any space between them was too much space. He kissed Neil fierce and hard, and Neil responded with noises that Andrew ate up hungrily. His hands gripped at Neil’s sides, the collar of his sweater, tugged at Neil’s hair. Neil’s skin felt too hot against his cold hands, and Andrew wanted more than anything to hold Neil there like a flame that kept him alive. He broke the kiss and pulled back.

Neil shivered.

Andrew stood up, and watched as Neil watched him. “You’re too cold,” Andrew said as Neil shivered again.

Neil chuckled as he stood, “I can think of ways to fix that.”

“By going inside,” Andrew deadpanned.

Neil groaned, but did as bid. Andrew followed him, skin still lit by electricity.

—

Christmas morning they slept in. They ordered room service and found the only non Christmas related thing on tv and laid next to each other talking, ignoring it. For dinner they went out, fast food they ate in the car along a darkened strip of road. And then they drove in the night, nowhere, just, away. Just the two of them in the press of the darkness of a highway. The quiet understanding of two people looking out at the world from the same place where they stood together.

**Author's Note:**

> I understand the appeal to write soft and fluffy Christmas stories because, well, we all want soft things for these characters who have been through so much. (And nothing against those fics, no, not at all.) But sometimes the best thing for a person isn't the fluff and softness that we ourselves want. Healing and recovery take on different forms, and from personal experience and knowing what I know about these characters, I feel pretty confident in the idea that Christmas? Just isn't what they need. But just because they don't experience the world the same as others, or as you, doesn't mean they're sad or hurt. So this may not have been the fluffy Christmas fic you were looking for, but that doesn't mean they're not happy. 
> 
> -gets off soapbox-


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